The Associated Press
CHICAGO -- Federal prosecutors are seeking a stiffer sentence for a white supremacist convicted of soliciting the murder of a federal judge, whose husband and mother were found dead in her home last month in an unrelated attack.
Prosecutors said in a court filing Wednesday that Hale faces up to 40 years in prison by statute. The filing said the government will seek to increase Hale’s sentence because the murder solicitation “was a crime of terrorism” under federal guidelines.
Hale was convicted last April of trying to have U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow killed and obstruction of justice. The judge was not attacked.
Prosecutors said Hale was furious after Lefkow ordered him to stop using the name World Church of the Creator because it had been trademarked by another group.
Hale, who has represented himself since August, said in court papers that he should be sentenced to no more than eight years in prison. Sentencing is set for April 6.
Lefkow’s husband and mother were found shot to death in the basement of the Lefkows’ home in Chicago on Feb. 28. Hale and his followers were initially suspected in the attack, but unemployed electrician Bart Ross confessed to the murders in a suicide note. DNA evidence later connected him to the crime scene.